Board Rates Will Jump Next Term

Higher weekly and transient board rates will go into effect on February 4, when the spring term begins, Administrative Vice-President Reynolds stated yesterday.

The weekly rate will rise from the present $14 a week to $14.50 throughout all College dining halls the Graduate Center, and the Business School's Cowie Hall. Transient diners and those bringing guests to meals in the College will have to pay $1.15 in coupons (include tax) for dinners, a ten cent rise over the present rate, and 85 cents for lunches, a nickel hike. Breakfasts will remain at 65 cents.

Reynolds added a plea that dinners cut on waste and exercise restraint in taking beverages, so that further rate increase can be avoided.

Higher Costs the Root

The administration said the board hike is necessitated by increased food costs. Last year the dining halls suffered a $75,000 loss. The University held the line on the $14 weekly rate for the current fall term and waited to see November figures, completed just before Christmas vacation, before deciding what action to take. November is the most complete month for figuring food costs, Reynolds said.

"We found that we were worse off that last year," he said.

This fall, the acute situation forced the University to limit portions in the Business and Graduate Schools and raise the transient rate on dinners. Students eating in Harkness and Cowie could take only two glasses of milk and paid anywhere from $1.05 to $1.30 for dinners depending on what was served.

No Portion Limits Yet

"The biggest cost," said Reynolds, "It in milk and fruit juices." He added that the University didn't want to limit portions in the Houses and Union yet. But he cautioned that if the new board rates didn't help pull the dining halls out of their hole, some limits would have to be made on portions later.

"Every student can help," Reynolds said, "by limiting himself to just what he will eat, and by taking only two glasses of milk and fruit juices."

Computed cost for the average meal served in the dining halls during the five month period ending last November was 89 cents per meal. The food cost an average of 45 cents, service was 30 and administration and other expenses amounted to about 14 cents. The administration found that waste of food contributed much ot the high cost of each meal.

Personnel cuts have been made where possible; but these were occasioned mainly by decreases in student population in some Houses.

The last board rate change came during April, 1951, when the weekly bill rose to $14 and transient rates went up on all meals. These rates would have gone into effect two months earlier but for a government price freeze.

With the policy of raising the rates, which amount to roughly $13 more per year to those on board, the College dining halls have kept their system of being one of the few college dining halls in the country that puts no limit on servings